archive friday pendant

archive friday pendant, originally uploaded by robayre.

This friday’s archive friday piece is a silver pendant I designed and cast in my metals class in junior college. It was one of a series. One I made for my sister had a tiny compass built into it, another had peacock feathers, but all had this silver cage framework that opened with a clasp. I took several metalwork classes and it was one of the first studio classes I took. The time period in which I took metals was a pretty stressful time. I was taking a full load of classes and working tons of overtime, and of course I had my second job at the church. Despite all this I managed to often return to school in the evenings and work on metalwork. I’d go to sleep at night and dream of metalwork. I just absolutely loved it. It also helped that I had the most amazing teacher at the time. It’s during this time I got in the habit of carrying and using a sketchbook regularly. Years later when I tried to return to taking metal classes again, it wasn’t the same. I think I had changed too much and my world had opened up too much. Instead of only having metalwork in my head, now I had metalwork, photography, ceramics, silk screening, intaglio, lithography, relief printing, bookmaking, 3D fiber arts, watercolor, illustration, collage and just about every other art imaginable under the stars, all in my head. I couldn’t focus on metalwork and just metalwork alone anymore. It was really sad to me because I had long dreamed of returning and being full of the same passion as I had originally. Metalwork will always have this special place in my heart and I still dabble now and again on using metals here and there on artwork or jewelry at home (meaning: no soldering or casting).